FileConnect Enterprise (FCE): Advanced Deployment

Advanced Deployment lets you fully control the deployment and configuration of the major FCE components — for example, setting service passwords, and controlling the size and scale of the initial Elasticsearch deployment (including multi-host or clustered Elasticsearch). Most customers should use the standard FileConnect Enterprise v3.1 Setup guide; use this guide only when you need this level of control.

The deployment is orchestrated with Ansible for a robust, automated install. The overall steps are:

1. Install prerequisites
2. Configure installation options
3. Run the installation
4. Validate results
5. Continue to FCE installation

1. Prerequisites

Install the prerequisite components (EPEL, Python, Ansible, and others):

sudo dnf install -y epel-release
sudo dnf install -y yq ansible-core python3 python3-devel python3-pip

2. Configure installation options

1. Download the latest FCE 3.1+ installer package.
2. On the target machine, unzip the package into a directory writable by the user and group running the install.
3. The contents include ansible.tgz. Extract it:

   tar -xvpf ansible.tgz

This produces the directories and files for the Ansible-based install. The included README.md has further detail.

Set your installation options by editing the following files.

/inventory/hosts.yml — identifies the target hosts for the Diskover components (web, worker), RabbitMQ, and Elasticsearch.

• ansible_connection: for a single local target machine, set to local.
• ansible_user: a local user account with root/sudo access.
• ansible_ssh_pass: password for SSH access to remote target machines. If everything installs locally, comment this line out with #.
• ansible_become_pass: the local sudo password, used when the install must run as superuser.
• In the children section, set each host entry to the IP or FQDN of the target machine, and set hostname to the target machine's hostname (usually the output of hostname). For example, if hostname returns localhost.localdomain:

  children:
    diskover:
      children:
        web:
          hosts:
            192.168.50.135:
              hostname: localhost
    rabbitmq:
      hosts:
        192.168.50.135:
          hostname: localhost

/inventory/group_vars/all.yml

• diskover_version: preset to the correct version.
• rabbitmq_user / rabbitmq_pass: username and password for the RabbitMQ service.
• config_diskover_admin_api: set to true.
• es_heap_size: Elasticsearch memory heap size. Defaults to half the available memory on the target machine.
• es_data_dir / es_log_dir: set these to directories on partitions with sufficient space for Elasticsearch's data and logs.
• The other es_ variables can generally be left at their default values.
• deploy_mcp_server: keep as false.
• jfrog_user / jfrog_pass: the two parts of the access token RecordPoint provides.

/install_diskover.yml

Several entries in this file have roles that need adjusting:

• In the Backup Diskover section, change the role value from backup to common/backup.
• For Disable firewalld & SELinux, prefix the two roles with common/: common/firewalld and common/selinux.
• In the Install web and Install worker sections, change the python-pip role to common/python-pip.

3. Run the installation

1. Run as a non-root user with sudo privileges.
2. Ensure ansible_become_pass is set in hosts.yml if the user requires a password.
3. Recommended: tell Ansible where its main configuration file is:

   export ANSIBLE_CONFIG=/path/to/extract/ansible.cfg

4. Start the installation:

   ./runAnsible.sh

Some red/error text may appear during the run — this is normally expected. When it finishes, the Ansible PLAY RECAP should show no jobs in the failed category.

4. Validate and configure Diskover

Follow the Diskover validation and configuration steps in the FileConnect Enterprise v3.1 Setup guide.

5. Install FCE

Once Diskover is configured, follow the standard FCE installation steps in the FileConnect Enterprise v3.1 Setup guide.